More than 140 residents attended the Community Forum in the Lucy Hurlin Theatre at ConVal High School on Wednesday, February 12. Another 122 viewers followed the evening's live stream online.

The Forum's agenda included presentations on the ConVal District Budget, the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the teacher's union (CVEA), the warrant articles related to the trust fund warrants, the petition article imposing a per-student cost budget cap on future budgets, and the proposed withdrawals by Dublin and Francestown from the ConVal School District.

During the Q&A portion of the Community Forum, the greatest number of comments and questions revolved around the petition warrant article, the proposed town withdrawals, and the consequences that would result from the votes on these warrant articles.

If you could not attend the event in person or were unable to watch the live stream, you can watch the recording at this link.

Members of the ConVal School Board and the District Administration gathered at Hancock Elementary School on Monday night for a public hearing on the petition warrant article that would impose a $29,000 per student cap on the ConVal Budget.

About 40 residents listened as Curtis Hamilton, the School Board Representative from Greenfield, explained how the proposed cap amounts to a de facto $2.9 and $5.4 million cut to the annual budget. The reductions required under the proposal would irrecoverably change the educational opportunities for students attending ConVal.

This would include the loss of all athletic programs, co-curricular, and student leadership opportunities at the middle and high school levels, the elimination of all enrichment programs, the termination of curricular offerings like Honors and AP courses, as well as cuts of administrators at the SAU level and in community schools. In addition, just in its first year of implementation, up to 15 teaching positions would have to be cut in order to meet the cap-mandated budget reductions.

During the question-and-answer portion of the public hearing, residents asked how the $29,000 cap number came about, what additional cuts would have to be made, and what could be done to defeat the petitioned warrant article at the polls.

Additional meetings about the petition warrant article will be held over the next two weeks in Dublin, Peterborough, Francestown, Antrim, Greenfield, Temple, Bennington, and Sharon.

Kindergarten registration and screening for the northern tier of the ConVal School District will be held on Tuesday, February 18, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm at Antrim Elementary School, 10 School Street, in Antrim. A snow date is scheduled for Thursday, February 20, at the same time and location.

The child must be accompanied to the registration and screening by a parent or legal guardian and must be five years old by September 30, 2025.

Pre-registration for this event is required. Please call Melissa Gatto at (603) 924-7503 ext. 2032 to schedule an appointment time.

About 40 students gathered in the ConVal High School Library on Friday for a virtual author visit with Neal Shusterman.

Shusterman is an American young adult fiction author who writes in the science fiction and dystopian genres. He is known for blending philosophical and ethical dilemmas with gripping narratives. His books often explore the consequences of advanced technology, the morality of life and death, and personal identity.

His award-winning novels include the dystopian trilogy Arc of a Scythe series, the four-book series Unwind, and the novel Dry which explores a world suffering from a catastrophic water shortage. His latest book, All Better Now, is about an unprecedented, highly lethal virus whose survivors experience an unexpected long-term effect: utter contentment. 

Shusterman has received the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his book Challenger Deep, and his novel Scythe was a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book. In 2024, Shusterman received the Margaret Edwards Award honoring his "significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens."

Organized by the ConVal librarians Rachael Bowman, Ashley Mudrick, and English teacher Liz Moore, the virtual author visit was shared with both Great Brook School and South Meadow School via Zoom.

Congratulations to the 48 South Meadow School 5th-grade students who were recently recognized by the Young Writers Organization and will have their work published in the upcoming "Fright Club" anthology.

This contest challenged students to craft mini-sagas, creating suspenseful and creative stories with a tight word limit of just 100 words.

A huge shoutout goes out to Sandy Baker and the Young Writers Club for giving our students this amazing opportunity!

The Contoocook Valley School District Board is in receipt of a Petition Warrant Article which seeks to adopt a School District Budget Cap. The School Board is required to hold a public hearing on the question in each town embraced by the District.

The text of the Petition Warrant Article is as follows:

“Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 32:5-e, and implement a budget cap whereby the School Board shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than 29,000 dollars per pupil cost times the average daily membership in residence of the school district as of October 1 of the year immediately preceding the proposed budget year plus an annual increase for inflation using CPI-U, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH area published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

(Submitted by petition)

For a complete schedule of meeting locations, dates, and times, please click here.

This is the third in our annual series of articles regarding the financial aspects of running the ConVal School District.

This article covers two related warrant articles that address the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). For the full-length article (4 pages), please click here.

Jim Fredrickson Chairman, Budget & Property Committee ConVal School Board

Superintendent Dr. Ann Forrest visited with the Robotic Pumas at South Meadow School recently.

The students demonstrated their skills with VEX robotics in an enclosed area that mimics competition conditions where they have to pick up objects and place them in a basket.

Individual students explained how they built their VEX robots as part of the Expand Your Horizons Program (EHP) which is taught by Nichole DeDecker at SMS.

Students went into detail about whether they focused on the drive train or the pickup mechanism first, and how they have to pay attention not only to the mechanical side of the robots but also to maintaining the logistics, like battery charging.

VEX Robotics is a platform that is widely used in education, competitions, and for building custom robots. It is popular in middle school, high school, and college-level robotics programs, as well as in the broader maker and engineering communities.